


you're a risk that i'm willing to take

by antukini



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, BAMF Senju Tobirama, Child Abuse, Developing Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Fluff, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sibling conflict, bcos it won't be a fic of mine unless there's fluff, but it gets resolved soon i swear, eventual secret relationship, idk about slow burn but there's a fire alright, physical discipline, upped to m rating for graphic depiction of violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:41:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24437596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antukini/pseuds/antukini
Summary: When Tobirama first met Uchiha Madara, he didn't expect them to end up like this. Neither did Madara.And they wouldn't have it any other way.The expanded story ofpromise you'll never let go.
Relationships: Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama, Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 54
Kudos: 224





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> orayt my first multichapter fic for this fandom and i didn’t finish writing it before publishing ahahah!! (fully brainstormed it tho, well at least the most of the gist anyway, nyeheheh i’m too much of a capricorn) let’s see how this goes
> 
> inspired by forbidden by todrick hall (it's rlly good, the whole concept album is even better *chef's kiss*)
> 
> the summary sucks i know but i'll change it when i figure out something better
> 
> i’d warn y’all about my creative liberties but since this _is_ fanfiction that’s a given

Painted rocks hit weapons with a _clang_. Tobirama’s eyes widen, taking care to not make eye contact with the boy in front of him even in his surprise, hands holding his sword steady.

( _Never make eye contact with the Uchiha._ Father doesn’t say _I don’t want to lose you as well_ but his eyes speak for him.)

The other Uchiha boy—Uchiha Madara—jumps in front of Izuna, yelling, “I’ll never forgive anyone who tries to hurt my brother!”

Hashirama had jumped forward as well, his back to Tobirama. “Me as well!”

A tense silence follows. Tobirama can feel the tension on his skin. His senses are open, feeling Hashirama’s familiar bright chakra wavering, the blazing chakra of Uchiha Madara flickering—doubt?—then flare in resolution. The air is still with bated breath.

Then the older Uchiha boy speaks tone strong but his voice halting, “Maybe… it just isn’t possible for us… to reach that pipe dream of ours.”

Hashirama’s ever-blooming chakra starts to wither with the Uchiha’s following words, the hope Tobirama has felt growing in him for the past few months now fading. Tobirama’s brows furrow.

“It may have been brief but it was fun, Hashirama.” His fire-chakra flickers as Hashirama’s droops.

Tobirama feels a pang in his chest but files it away for later. He won’t let his brother go unprotected. Not now. _Not now._

Hashirama spreads his arms. “Madara! You really haven’t given up, have you? You’ve finally gotten to the same point I—”

“You are Senju. I really wish it wasn’t so.”

Hashirama’s drooping chakra still tries to reach and Tobirama _doesn’t understand_. The Uchiha slaughtered their brothers, their uncles, their aunts, their _kinsmen_ and yet Hashirama’s chakra reaches for the flames. _Why?_

“My brothers were killed by Senju.”

Tobirama’s hands tighten their grip. _So were ours_ , his mind spits.

The Uchiha speaks some more but Tobirama’s eyes are hawk-sharp on their movements, stance shifting with every move they make. No brother of his will be cut down, not his watch. Not now, not like before.

The Uchiha’s chakra flares in a familiar pattern, Tobirama readies himself for when Madara tries capturing his brother in a genjutsu, a seal burning in his pocket but—

Madara doesn’t attack. The Uchiha leave with only the fallen sword Uchiha Tajima aimed at Tobirama and the thrown painted rocks in the lake to mark their presence.

They leave moments after when Tobirama is sure they aren’t tricking them and are heading back to their compound. The sound of their feet hitting the branches is all he hears on their way home.

The air is tense. His father’s chakra is boiling under the surface, earth turbulently rumbling. Hashirama’s chakra is wilted, not like it’s usual blooming, dark with something that felt like betrayal. Tobirama doesn’t get it, but he soldiers on, face stony as his father trained him to be. Hashirama will tell him eventually.

Their sandals land on Senju grounds but still Hashirama is silent, the dark spots in his chakra festering like an infected wound. There is no yelling. There is no talking back. Only defiant silence.

It’s when Tobirama is putting his armor away when he thinks, _Hashirama would usually be wailing and yelling by now, not like this._

Armor off and clothes on, he picks up the medical kit and waits outside the discipline room.

Tobirama sits outside the door, kit set beside him, eyes focused straight ahead, ears open to hear the heavy _thwacks_ of the cane. The heavy stillness of the halls gives his mind the time to think.

 _Thwack._ It begins. Hashirama doesn’t shout. He doesn’t yell. Not like usual.

 _Thwack._ Tobirama’s hands clench as he thinks, wonders. Why would he be silent now? And those spots seeping into his chakra… Why did it feel like Tobirama did something wrong? He had done it to protect him.

 _Thwack._ His mind latches on that hope he had felt blooming in Hashirama’s chakra, the hope he’d helped crush. He knew about the Uchiha boy, he’d felt no hostility so he let them be. When he’d been ordered by his father to tail his brother, he had planned on covering Hashirama and letting him cultivate that happiness he’d found but then he’d felt the other Uchiha boy spying. He had no choice.

 _Thwack._ Tobirama drives his eyes shut but it only magnifies the echo of the cane hitting his brother’s back. He knows it well, he’d received punishment before. Not good enough. Not fast enough. Not quick enough. Sometimes he wishes he got the cane when he was too slow to reach Kawarama and Itama, both of them well within his range when they died. The last flickers of their chakra still haunt his sleep.

 _Thwack. Thwack._ He tries to breathe to calm himself but the unspoken words catch in his throat, his breath comes in stutters. He’s spiraling.

 _Thwack. Thwack. Thwack_ He forces his eyes open to stare at the end of the hall only to see the Senju kamon staring back at him. It feels like mockery. His ears ring but the only noise is the cane hitting flesh behind the door.

 _Thwack._ He feels a pit in his stomach grow with every sound he hears. He’s the cause of this. He’s the reason why Hashirama is hurting. He doesn’t know how to make it better.

 _Thwack. Thwack._ His hands clench harder. His nails bite into his palm, but the pain in his chest doesn’t fade.

 _Thwack. Thwack. Thwack._ He wants it to stop. Make it stop. _Stop._

_Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack._

The cane stops sounding and Tobirama _breathes_. The door slides open. Father exits with only an acknowledging nod in Tobirama’s direction storming away presumably to vent in the training fields.

Tobirama enters, the box of medical supplies he placed beside him in his arms, his breathing is back to normal only to stutter at the sight of Hashirama. His brother doesn’t turn to him, doesn’t smile. His chakra feels cold, withered with betrayal; it shifts away from him. It hurts.

Tobirama doesn’t speak as he treats Hashirama’s back. If Hashirama won’t talk, Tobirama won’t force him. Not yet.

When Tobirama finishes, he tries to linger. He doesn’t know if he should apologize for taking that blooming hope away. He doesn’t know if he should justify his actions, let Hashirama understand that he didn’t mean to hurt him like this.

No words come. Hashirama doesn’t speak but for the betrayed look in his eyes. Tobirama turns away and leaves, box in his hands, his heart clenching but his face like stone. If a tear slips down his cheek, only the doors would tell.

Hashirama doesn’t speak to him weeks after. Tobirama doesn’t understand. He waits for Hashirama to talk.

In the silence, he wonders.

_What was it, anija? What was it with the Uchiha boy that you were ready to commit treason?_

_Am I not enough?_

_Why won’t you let me in?_

_Do you not trust me?_

_Why won’t you speak?_

_What did I do wrong?_

_Why?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the illustration was drawn by [akayauchiha](https://akayauchiha.tumblr.com/) on tumblr we cryin ✨
> 
> this is the first i've written such deep angst i hope i did it well 👉👈 (it'll get resolved soon i swear!! i'mtoomuch of a softy to let them be so estranged)
> 
> quick question: would y'all rather zetsu doesn't exist or our favorite boys curbstomp him?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter (and irl events) tripped me up so much hhh i didnt even plan on writing the last part and this one, thinking i could just fast forward to the mdtb stuff but uh brain said no all of a sudden so here we are 💀 (this chapter and the previous one are more similar to prologues than as part of the main story tbh)

Days pass and they are silent.

When he nears his brother, Hashirama shifts away. He is met with frosty silence and a cold shoulder and it hurts. The betrayal in his chakra is still dark, still growing. The days don’t help it lighten. He fears for when it solidifies.

When Tobirama goes on tangents as he is wont to do, he instinctively turns beside him, mouth open to let out an offhand comment, only to see that he is alone with only the silence as his company. He wakes up and Hashirama’s presence doesn’t even linger in his futon now placed on the other side of the room, not right beside Tobirama’s. It hurts.

It doesn’t feel right.

He knows he and Hashirama are close, not like he had been with Kawarama and Itama but close nonetheless, especially since their younger brothers’ deaths. They were often rough-housing, usually when Hashirama inevitably touches an experiment of Tobirama’s and more often than not makes it explode. They talked into the night, they hugged—usually Hashirama hugging the air out of his lungs but he’s long grown used to that force and admittedly become fond of it, though he would never tell Hashirama that—, Tobirama hasn’t tugged Hashirama’s hair off his scalp since then, nor has he even been able to rib at him once after that day.

He barely sees him, only the presence of his withered, colder, darkened chakra indicating he isn’t outside the compound.

Every moment he feels Hashirama’s chakra it feels more _off_ than before, the growing darkness leeching the vibrancy and life out of it ever so slowly. It’s wrong, _wrongwrongwrong_.

When he meditates, he can’t clear his mind. His brother’s chakra disturb him. Thoughts crowd him, pressing in, suffocating. _He hates me. He hates that I took his dream away. He doesn’t trust me anymore. I am not enough. He trusts Uchiha Madara more than he does me._ He can’t even drown them out with experiments because the thoughts keep surfacing, buoying from whatever depth he tries to bury them in.

Whenever he feels that once-lively chakra darkening, he thinks, _I need to fix it_. It doesn’t quite feel right to say that he is the whole cause of it but it was when he crushed his brother’s dreams that the darkness festered. Something about the state of his brother’s chakra is _wrongwrongwrong_ —mother had always told him to listen to his instincts and they are _screaming_ , louder and louder every moment the chakra dims, something is _wrong_ —and he _needs to fix it_. He won’t lose his brother. No. Not again, _never_ again.

He thinks to approach Touka but she is away on a month-long mission. He has no one else close to turn to. He doubts father would listen to him.

He needs to do it himself. He won’t let Hashirama run away. He needs to fix it. _They_ need to fix it.

Then not even a full week since the incident, right when he resolves himself to fix it, they are assigned separate missions. A retrieval for Tobirama and border patrol for Hashirama. Hashirama still doesn’t look in his direction. His chakra still feels _wrong_.

Tobirama accepts his mission with a picture-perfect bow, his face indicating nothing.

When he gets back, he will make it _right_.

—

Tobirama runs near his top speed, eyes ahead and senses as open as he can stretch them outside of meditation and running. The compound had already appeared at the edge of his senses minutes ago. Not much longer until he’s home. Hashirama’s chakra is a beacon to his senses, still located at the border.

The Uchiha compound comes into his range not long after and he can’t help but notice two crackling signatures of young but powerful children, near and bright, near-twined together. Signatures he’s since remembered since the river. Their closeness feels like a taunt.

In stark contrast to Tobirama and Hashirama, the Uchiha brothers didn’t take a full day to make up. Every time their chakra flare in tandem out of amusement, every time they come close to the other, every time they are together for long periods of time, his insides burn.

Tobirama is still not sure if it’s out of jealousy or anger or both.

He is reminded of the encroaching dark in his brother’s chakra and feels a shiver run down his spine—he’s been away for three days, how far has it _reached_ —but is then distracted from his thoughts with new presences appearing at the edge of his senses. Presences rushing to Hashirama’s location.

_Kaguya, ten men strong, half of them high-level._

Hashirama only has three others with him.

_He runs._

—

Tobirama arrives not ten minutes later. Blood dotted the grass, turning vibrant green rusty. Tobirama’s brows furrow, mind running a mile a minute.

One Senju—Aunt Chizu, his subconscious supplies—has a giant hole in her stomach, Hashirama trying to heal her behind a doton wall—Tobirama doesn’t think he’s injured—, Uncle Kaido and Aunt Kuri guarding them, arms littered with shallow cuts.

In his immediate vision, three of the Kaguya are dead—strewn across the field with faint marks of sandals on them, probably run through by Aunt Chizu’s swords from the look of their wounds—, three mildly injured—one being the only light-haired one of the group, spear in hand, a slash at his chest seeping blood into white robes; one with all her dark hair haphazardly cut short, her face with a cut cheek contorted in deranged anger, brandishing a bladed bō staff; and another whose chakra was unsettlingly still with blood at his sides, unusual weapon shaped like a cone at the ready, dripping blood—, two lightly scuffed—one with a bone-spear and the other with daggers, both littered with cuts at their backs—, and one entirely uninjured—spinning two bone-swords in his hands.

Tobirama’s eyes dart around. Where is the last o— _There_ ; springing from the tree cover, uninjured as well, and gearing up to take down the wall, a man wielding the biggest bone weapon of all in the squad of Kaguya.

All of them held their bone weapons, the injured ones seemingly uncaring of the blood streaming from their wounds, their bloodlust palpable.

Tobirama’s furrowed brows smooth right after. He sends out quick chakra pulses to demand reinforcements as he readies himself, kunai in hand.

That done, he immediately jumps into the fray with poison senbon fired at the injuries of the mildly injured Kaguya, hands flying through signs to pull up a water dragon to wash the giant weapon-wielding Kaguya near the wall away. He lands on the back of the Kaguya with the spear using chakra to stick to their back, driving a kunai from the neck into the skull. Springing from the falling back, he jumps onto a branch and is immediately surrounded by the two other mildly injured Kaguya, both immediately leap at him, blade and cone-point coming for his neck. He unsheathes his sword in one smooth movement, sliding into a kick, hitting the with the cone-weapon into a tree. He engages the bladed staff-wielder with his sword, parrying then jumping apart when the Kaguya threatened to overwhelm him with her weight.

He hears Hashirama yelling for Uncle Kaido to take Aunt Chizu to the healers, “I can’t heal more than this right now, she needs immediate attention!” There is no moment of dissent, two Senju chakra signatures running to the direction of the compound.

Hashirama and Aunt Kuri join the fray. Aunt Kuri’s naginata sounds against a bone-weapon, Hashirama’s sword doing the same.

He focuses, engaging again, slashing and kicking at any opening he can reach. The Kaguya slows, probably from the senbon he’d fired earlier. The Kaguya falters and Tobirama takes the chance to drive his sword straight into the white-covered chest. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, especially with the bloodthirsty Kaguya, he reaches for the pale neck and breaks it with a _crack_. He turns to fight the cone-wielding Kaguya getting up from the tree Tobirama had kicked them into but his eyes catch and notice—

Hashirama is distracted fighting two of the Kaguya, too preoccupied to notice the Kaguya with the giant bone-weapon behind him.

Uncharacteristic panic and _fear_ floods him, his chakra reaches for water _water **water**_ and—

Blood explodes from pale, near-white skin and all it leaves is dust. Tobirama’s hands shake.

_He’s safe._

Then he feels a blade drive straight from his back to his stomach. He looks down. It’s blood-soaked bone.

“ _TOBIRAMA!_ ” Hashirama’s voice sounds like it was wrenched from his throat and Tobirama sees his face start to crumple. He hears something wooden growing behind him, a loud _squelch_ sounding right after. He doesn’t think it injured him, only the one conic weapon in his stomach.

He’s not sure what to feel about Hashirama’s first words to him being his name but with such a tone and voice. Before he can contemplate it more, the world turns black.

—

Tobirama wakes slowly, feeling for his body’s current situation before he opens his eyes. A bit sore especially in his stomach but manageable enough. His fingers are responding, no lost sensations. He slowly opens his senses to the world, almost blinded by the sun beside him, though dimmer than before. Opening his eyes, he sees the ceiling of his and Hashirama’s shared room, and with a turn of his head, he immediately sees Hashirama with his bowl cut and casual clothes, sitting beside his futon, wide awake.

Hashirama opens his mouth with an inhale but abruptly turns his head away, biting his wobbling lip.

Tobirama waits but Hashirama does not speak even though he looked fit to burst. The dark encroaches.

Silence. _Again._

No. _No more._

Tobirama can’t keep his face from contorting in anger as he shoots upright to grab Hashirama’s collar. He feels his eyes sting with tears but he doesn’t pause to wipe them away. “What is it?! What did I _do_?! What did I do for you to hate _me_?!” His chakra roils, as turbulent as a whirlpool, desperately trying to make contact with Hashirama’s who kept shifting away, kept shutting him out. The force of his stormy chakra washes through Hashirama’s. The tears blur his vision but he doesn’t blink or they will start streaming. “Was it Uchiha Madara? What do I lack compared to _him_?”

Hashirama’s eyes are wide, brimming with tears. His precariously closed mouth wobbles with every word Tobirama utters. His chakra stops shifting away.

Tobirama wants to stop but the pent up words flood from his mouth in some desperate attempt to bridge the unbearable silence. He can’t stop. Tears fall from red eyes. His voice chokes. “Am— Am I not enough? Am I not— not trustworthy? How is it that protecting my brother is seen as betrayal? I had— I had _no choice_. I sensed Uchiha Izuna spying on you as well. I would never have let you die alone, with help. Not with— with—” _Kawarama and Itama._

Hashirama mournfully whines, his tears have started streaming down his face but he is still _quiet_.

A frustrated sound rips through his throat, his hands twisted in Hashirama’s collar shakes. He can’t help but need to yell, just to fill this— this _silence_.

 _Tobirama can’t stand it._ The dam bursts.

“I JUST WANTED TO PROTECT YOU, ANIJA!” His teary eyes bore into Hashirama’s even through the blur of tears. He sucks in a breath and his voice breaks. “ _WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?!_ ” His tears fall faster.

Hashirama sobs. “Tobi— Tobiraaaaa,” he wails, dragging Tobirama into a crushing hug. Tobirama immediately wraps his arms around Hashirama, not minding the awkward twist of his torso, hands grappling for purchase and gripping the back of Hashirama’s clothes as his tears soak into his brother’s shoulder. He soaks in Hashirama’s presence, his chakra.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Hashirama lets out a litany of apologies as he squeezes Tobirama’s breath out his lungs, chakra vibrant again, free from the encroaching dark, feeling _right_. He moves to press a kiss to Tobirama’s hair, rubbing his back, still chanting his apologies.

Tobirama sags in relief. He’s fixed it.

—

Later, when the tears have been shed and have subsided, and the opened wounds have been treated—the twisted position he had been in had caused some bleeding, he hadn’t noticed that the area had been numbed—, they lay on the same futon in the quiet of the night.

They talk into the wee hours, Hashirama taking the time to tell Tobirama, assure him, that he is enough, that he trusted him, and that he had felt betrayed before but now that he knew _why_ Tobirama had done so, he understands. He admitted that he had been petty and hurt and that had been what lead him to be silent—a niggling feeling tells him it isn’t all that but he puts it aside for later.

Tobirama is assured enough that he mustered enough courage to ask about Uchiha Madara and Hashirama tells him stories and little anecdotes.

“You’ll see, Tobirama. He’s a good person.”

Feeling the warm, blazing chakra flaring in the Uchiha compound, reminded of what he’d sensed of the Uchiha brothers, he hums indistinctly.

He’ll see it for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> didn’t want to leave them strained okay there’s enough of that lmao also _wow_ i'm not subtle hskjfdhk
> 
> ...this is the second fight i have ever written and the first multi-person fight i’ve ever done pls forgive me if it isn’t the best m(_ _||)m also i hope the outburst scene had an impact, haven't really written emotional scenes of this kind
> 
> do remember that they’re both kids, still young. hashirama is a whole _tween_. kids aren’t very big into “big picture thinking,” they tend to focus more on themselves. they’re kids, not really the pinnacle of maturity lmao. if you don’t get the cold shoulder and silence thing, i’ve done it plenty of times with my brothers before; my sibling does something i viewed as unforgivable -> i’d give him the cold shoulder maybe not even talk to him at all. though i dont last more than a day lol
> 
> also some good news: we'll finally be getting some mdtb in the next chapter :3 just some build-up stuff but there nonetheless
> 
> poll tally on zetsu’s fate >:3  
> -FUCK HIM UP: 5  
> -whomst is zetsu idk her: 1  
> -either way, he’s fucked: 2  
> in conclusion: the people have spoken and we shall fuck this bitch up my dudes (this is gonna be some great bonding and catharsis, i can feel it) thanks to everyone who voted!!
> 
> hope y'all are safe rn!! there may be a lot of shit going on but there's also good changes happening, we'll get through this for the better *hug*


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not outright mdtb yet but it’s a start ;3

_“You’ll see, Tobirama. He’s a good person.”_

The words echo in Tobirama’s mind. They make him think, another thread of thought to add to the five running in his mind at every moment. His thoughts gravitate to that chakra beacon, that sun, contained, swirling with energy and life.

When he meditates to calm his mind but he can’t help but feel-see that beacon of fire-chakra in a territory kilometers away. It swirls and pulses and crackles. It burns and burns and _burns_ with the need to protect, not unlike Tobirama’s own.

He doesn’t know why he keeps coming back to that warm, protective heat as if it were the only light he could see. But that wasn’t true, Hashirama’s chakra is a beacon as well, a flourishing forest, ever-expanding.

After the river, even before he and Hashirama finally had that talk, Tobirama had noticed a darkness seep into the fire. It felt similar to what he felt in Hashirama. It was strange, he’d felt the chakra of the grieving before, it didn’t feel like _that_. It didn’t spread through Uchiha Madara, though. Not like Hashirama did. The sun-fire chakra _burns_ , keeping the dark at bay yet it stays at the edges, lurking. Tobirama’s not sure what it entails but it doesn’t feel like anything beneficial to anyone.

Uchiha Madara feels like what Hashirama has told him but Tobirama won’t believe it without empirical evidence other than his chakra sense.

—

Not long after their talk, Tobirama and Hashirama were called to the battlefront—first against the Hagoromo and then the Uchiha—and the words sound like dissonance when Tobirama steps on the frontlines of the battlefield.

It’s the first time he sees the Uchiha brothers since the river and they are _vicious_ , desperation tinged at the edge of their chakra, plowing through Senju.

Tobirama cuts swathes of Uchiha until his and Uchiha Izuna’s blades clash, evenly matched.

Hashirama’s chakra flares as he clashes with Uchiha Madara, a reminder. Tobirama flares his understanding and continues, taking every opportunity to keep his brother in his line of sight, within his battle-narrowed range.

They pull out every trick they know from their young minds, blade meets blade, water meets fire, _defendprotectdefend_ ringing in their heads.

And so the dance starts. One attacks, the other counters, and on and on and on until their fathers call for a retreat with no new ground gained, only lost lives and cold bodies to take home.

Only when they return home does Tobirama think of things unrelated to battle. He has a memory of a steel trap—sometimes he hears “memory like an Uchiha’s” when he walks the compound but he lets it slide as he always does; it had been inconsequential, intervention unnecessary—he can go back and contemplate the day’s past events and ruminate on possible solutions, inventions, he could devise to lessen the fallen bodies that arrive home after every skirmish.

Tobirama recalls the older Uchiha brother, his chakra a fire burning, burning, _burning_ with protectiveness and love. It hadn’t escaped his notice that he had kept his younger brother in his sights even as he clashes with Hashirama. He and Hashirama had clashed but none of them had aimed for lethal strikes. Perhaps some of the Uchiha’s words at the river had been false. Tobirama remembers the flickering of it as the Uchiha spoke, it had felt like someone speaking a half-truth.

He sees Uchiha Madara and wonders.

—

Tobirama stops for a moment when he lands on a tree branch a little ways away from his target, making sure it was secure before he ran the last stretch to his target’s village.

The chakra-camouflaging seal he had made a week ago was written inside his arm, no ink smudged, chakra circulating just fine. It had the inconvenience of narrowing his chakra sense to only the span of a medium-sized civilian village—something to improve upon, it still had kinks he needed to fix but it’s stable enough to use—but it will serve its purpose well enough for his mission. He only needs to retrieve a noble’s stolen jewelry, easy enough. Someone else from the clan could have taken the mission but the client had asked for the best of the best and father had assigned him.

Inspection done, he continues, flashing through the trees. When he nears the boundary of the civilian village ruled by a noble—distantly related to the robbed party, he recalls—, he feels a warm bonfire crackling amidst young candles with his reduced chakra sense.

He’d sensed Uchiha Madara in the village of his mission’s objective hours before he’d put on the camouflaging seal. He couldn’t delay a time-sensitive mission to avoid a possible confrontation. Even then, he’s confident enough that the seal would hold up to scrutiny, he’d had Mito review it for him after all. Madara is a strong sensor but not as good as Tobirama, if Mito had a hard time with the seal, it will hold just fine.

He comes to a soundless stop when he nears a clearing on the outskirts of the forest surrounding the village, children’s laughter ringing like bells to his sensitive ears. He hears a deeper voice laughing along with them and it urges him to look down from the branch he’s perched on.

Messy, dirty, village children scream and laugh, running around and away from a man in dark clothes with a distinctive bush of unruly black hair who was playfully chasing them around in a game of tag. A young but deep voice—one Tobirama has only ever heard from across the battlefield, bellowing and yelling at Hashirama, forceful and powerful—reverberates throughout the clearing.

It’s been five years since he and Hashirama had that conversation and yet this is the first time he’s seen Madara off the battlefield. It’s the first time he ever sees the Uchiha smile.

Something tugs in his chest at the sight and he’s not sure why.

“Ne, Yamaarashi-san! Bet you can’t catch me!” A child with spiky hair up in spikes stands with a hand on her hips, voice taunting. Tobirama is nearly startled into laughter at the nickname.

A tick visibly appears on Madara’s brow. “Porcupine?! You little brat, you don’t get to call me that! You look more like a porcupine than I do!”

As if signaled by the spiky-haired child, all of the children gang up to taunt one of the most feared shinobi of their generation, calling him a porcupine until he snaps and runs after them. Then the chase begins anew.

Tobirama feels his mouth twitching upwards, unbidden.

He hears Hashirama’s young voice in his head again.

_“You’ll see, Tobirama. He’s a good person.”_

He looks up and sees the position of the sun. He has to leave.

Just before he goes, he looks back for a second and thinks, _maybe_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~i was so tempted to end it on the segment before the final scene lmao (y’all could have chased me w pitchforks so i didn’t)~~
> 
> an early-ish update for y’all since i’ll be focusing on planning and writing (maybe even drawing owo) for madatobi week which is next month (i have. so many ideas y’all) so i won't be updating for a while
> 
> dw i’ll still be working on this when i have the time in-between stuff (kinda unlikely since i only have less than a month before school starts ~~fucking school~~ )

**Author's Note:**

> if y'all have any suggestions for interactions you want to see (especially in the future with madatobi) feel free to send me an ask on tumblr or put it in a comment, i'd very much appreciate it :DD
> 
> [tumblr](https://antukini.tumblr.com/)   
>  [twitter](https://twitter.com/antukini)


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